Guest Lecturer Brings International Experience With Leadership Skills Into the Lecture Room
The “Leadership: Theory and Practice” course is part of the international program, which is a course offering for international students who spend one to two semesters abroad at the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Tirol (FH Kufstein Tirol). Incoming students are an integral part of life at the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein – every year up to 200 incoming students enrich our international campus life. The study program that is offered is only in English and just as diverse and challenging as the regular study program for bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Leadership theory in business management: This is the content of the “Leadership: Theory and Practice” course. The lecture gave a chronological overview beginning with the basic leadership styles from 1900 up to the contemporary, new approaches to leadership of today. In addition to investigating management theory and research (theoretical part), various exercises, activities, and cases were used to learn application of the theory (practical part).
Expertise in leadership – practical training
People from the business world were included in the practical part of the lecture who live and some who also teach leadership such as Andreas Gell.
Andreas Gell – a graduate of the Sports, Culture & Event Management degree program – has already worked in his career for many renowned companies such as Air & Style Company, Nike, and Burton. Gell is currently employed at Burton as a global retail experience strategist and defines the overall Burton experience in 72 stores worldwide. The 650 employees of the company in these stores play a fundamental role in the positive and modern overall brand experience. Gell is indirectly responsible both for role definition as well as the framework and goal setting of these 650 employees.
Andreas Gell gave the students an overview of his career path from his degree program at the University up to his current function as a leader of Burton’s retail business. Since the focus of the course was practical application, the lecture was quickly made into a workshop for training leaders.
During the practical training, the main task was to gain experience with clear communication, which is the basis for leadership responsibility. This capability was trained with various exercises in three core areas.
- Influence of leadership on motivation and productivity
- Two-way communication as the basis for successful leadership
- Customized employee leadership
Practice-oriented workshops were used to work on all three areas, and the students themselves were able to gain experience as leaders, employees, or as observers.
